Anyone dissociate later in life?!

My dissociation started at age 19 as a way to cope with Complex-PTSD.

*trigger warning*
My abusers were martial arts instructors. The one was my first boyfriend. He was into pornographic material, he started to pimp me.

Pretty soon I started to dissociate because of all the extreme sexual abuse. I was also stalked. Went through the court system.

Just a brief snapshot of what I went through.

Stressful situations like the one you are/were going though could have possibly "triggered" or activated your awareness of the dissociation. It took us until just a year ago to discover the extent of our disassociation. We were unaware for a long time until like you, a very stressful series of events suddenly made our symptoms start to come to light.

It is normal to be confused or even a little worried. This forum has helped us make a lot of sense out of what was happening to us, I hope it can do the same for you.

I did not experience significant depersonalization or derealization before my DID crisis 3 years ago. But my family history indicates I have had dissociated identities since very early childhood.

I am 57, and about a year ago was when the sleepwalking and dissociative behaviors started. This was about 6 months after a 5-year emotionally abusive relationship ended with a restraining order due to stalking & terror threats.

Prior to all that, I am not aware of any type of mistreatment...not in childhood, or throughout the rest of my life. And not aware of any dissociative behaviors either, till now.

Still working on trying to figure out my puzzle.

I have not had too much trauma in childhood. Not a situation of severe abuse at all. I always find info on severe childhood abuse but not in my case. My face freaks people out. And some of my alters interact with people--

Sean

It might be the case that you are just not able to remember it yet - that is the nature of the condition.

I did not learn that I had endured childhood trauma until I was 21. I forgot about it then and didn't recall it again until I was 27. I'm now in my 40's and had a crisis late last year with more incidents of childhood abuse being uncovered involving more than one perpetrator.

As far as I know I bacame a multiple at the age of 15... much later than what it seems is most common... but yes, I believe that some people can begin switching at later ages.... I guess I can't know for sure about having childhood trama, sinse If I just don't remember it then how would I know? But really I have looked into it and I'm 99% sure nothing happened untill I was 15.

crazy3 wrote:As far as I know I bacame a multiple at the age of 15...

Yet you have a handful littles.

The 8 year olds I believe were created while I was 15.... I think this happened because durring something tramatic I wanted to be as far away as possible from where I was... I ended up imaging myself in another state that I had spent a lot of time in while I was 8.... that state was the litteral farthest location from where I actually was that I had ever been to, so it's where I wanted to be.... I think that is why they are 8, not because something actually happened to me at that age...

The age of an alter isn't always the age it was created.... that just happens some, or maybe even most of the time.... but how do you explain alters that are older than the body? obviously not all alters are "stuck" in the age that the body was when they came to be.

Thank you for all for your replies!

I was just diagnosed. I also learned that ptsd can turn into did in a psych class
As ptsd is a dissociative mechanism.

Thank you all

More relpies the better

--jessica